Aspects of the present invention relate to engine diagnostic and testing. Other aspects of the present invention relate to devices that facilitate engine diagnostic and testing.
With advancements of technologies, engines used in moving vehicles are more and more built not just as a mechanical piece but combined with electronics that act as a coherent part of the engines to automate various tasks. Typically, such electronics are often powered to, for example, perform different computations, maintain engine""s operating parameters, control an engine""s operational behavior, and to facilitate other functions such as engine status checking, trouble shooting, diagnosing, or testing. For example, when a car is sent to a dealer to have maintenance services, to get an idea about the car""s condition, a technician may connect an engine diagnostic system with the engine management module (electronics inside of an engine) of the car, to obtain various types of status information about the engine of the car. If the status information reveals a potential problem associated with the engine, the technician may further perform different tests on the car""s engine to determine or diagnose the cause of the potential problem.
Such diagnostic operations are facilitated by an engine diagnostic system, which allows a user (e.g., a car repair technician) to specify desired operations to be performed and then executes the user specified operations via the engine management module of the engine. To do so, such an engine diagnostic system is capable of communicating with the engine management module inside of an engine. For example, desired operations include inquiring relevant status information of the engine or controlling the engine""s operations by, for example, configuring the engine""s operating parameters managed by the engine management module.
Different engine diagnostic systems have been developed for assisting diagnostic tasks performed on engines of various types of vehicles. For example, such systems may be developed for engines in automobiles as well as for engines used in recreational vehicles such as a boat. Existing engine diagnostic systems are implemented in different platforms. For example, an engine diagnostic system may either be realized on a specialized platform as a special purpose system or implemented on a general platform such as a personal computer as an application. There are various problems associated with existing engine diagnostic systems. For example, for sustained use, they require power lines that are hard wired to power plugs because the time period a battery permit is typically very limited. In many scenarios such as outdoor uses of an engine diagnostic system for a recreational vehicle (e.g., a boat), requiring a hard wired power line is often limit and inefficient.
When an engine diagnostic system is implemented on a general purpose personal computer or a laptop, the light crystal display screens used in such computers are usually not suitable for viewing information under outdoor day light conditions. In addition, since a personal computer or a laptop is designed for general purpose, it often takes longer time to start an engine diagnostic system implemented as one of many applications running on the same personal computer. In addition to platform related issues, existing engine diagnostic systems do not provide certain functions that allow users to perform some essential and important operations on an underlying engine. For example, each engine is associated with an injector whose performance may sometimes need to be adjusted during trouble shooting. Adjustment may need to be made while the engine is running. As another example, an engine map managed by an engine management module to control the engine behavior may sometimes need to be replaced when a new version of the engine map is approved by the environmental protection agency (EPA) and is required to replace all previously installed engine maps. Furthermore, other problems associated with existing engine diagnostic systems related to their weight (often too heavy) and size (too big) for portable uses.